Fade To Black
by DiabloVixen
Summary: Set a couple of months after the Season 1 (Spoilers). Piper is finally released from the SHU and she's a completely different person and becomes someone the entire prison grows to fear. Will someone be able to stop her before she falls to far?
1. Chapter 1

She had gotten so good at living behind those tiny four walls. Piper couldn't tell you how many days she had spend in here. She had no idea what _time_ of day it was, she had lost track of that a long time ago and she could never tell which meals where which. They were usually the same disgusting slop that she couldn't distinguish what was supposed to be breakfast from what was supposed to be dinner.

It's funny how you take for granted all of the things you get so used to. Even the most basic of things like Red's food and even the thinnest of mattresses.

She paced back and forth in her cell like a caged animal. It had become part of her ritual, she didn't have a book to read or a radio to listen to, so she wasn't left with many options. She could sit still and let her own thoughts drive her mad or she could exercise. She would pace until her legs ached with exhaustion and then she would pace some more. Then she'd move to push ups until her arms were sore, sit-ups until her stomach cramped and all of the other exersizes she either made up or thought she read about in magazines. Sometimes, when the thoughts weren't itching at her, trying to suck the life from her, she would try some of the poses Yoga Jones had used in her classes. Those usually didn't last very long until thoughts of Larry and Alex and Pennsatucky crawled up into her brain and then she would pace again until her aching body was all she could think of anymore.

Her legs quivered as she sad down back against the board that the prison liked to call a "bed". She could feel her eyes beginning to droop as exhaustion began to take over. That was another thing that she had to get used to during her time in the SHU. There was no sense of sleep cycles. There wasn't any light to differentiate between day and night. There wasn't a time to sleep, she slept when she was tired, she woke when she wasn't. She only knew it was day when the slot on the door would slip open and someone would jam a food tray through the hole, holding it for her to grab it and dropping it to the floor if she took too long to reach for it.

The food was barely edible but she managed to force it down. She always ate slowly, just one more thing to chip away at her time and make the days go by faster.

* * *

_Her eyes burn from the tears, the torn skin on her hands burn, her muscles burn from the exertion, but all she feels is anger. Anger at Pennsatucky__, Anger at Larry, Anger at Alex, Anger at herself, Anger at this so called God of Pennsatucky's__ that has fucked her over at a near constant basis lately. She pushes herself off of Pennsatucky and falls onto the cold ground beside her._

_Piper looks down at her bloody hands, more blood staining the snow around her red. She looks back at Pennsatucky, her face is battered almost beyond recognition. Pennsatuckly barely moves or makes a sound at least she can hear the gurgles of air bubbling through the blood surrounding her mouth._

_At least she's still breathing._

_She had to do it. She knows she did. Pennsatucky was going to kill her. _

_She was going to kill her._

"_Oh my God." _

_Piper looks up towards the door. It's Fischer, the rookie guard who discovers them. She's kneeling between Piper and Pennsatucky in an instant and from the looks of it its seems like she's trying to take Pennsatucky's pulse. Piper's pretty sure she's doing it wrong. _

_Piper doesn't hear what Fischer mumbles into her radio but more guards are pouring through the door. All but one of them rush over to the scene. Piper looks up to the one body standing at the door and makes eye contact with Mr. Healy who looks between the bloody mess that is now Pennsatucky's face and Piper with wide eyes. _

_Piper wants to call out to him. Ask him why he didn't help her when she was about to get murdered but rough hands are pulling at her and pushing her to the ground, her face is pushed down into the cold snow and something snaps against her wrists._

* * *

Piper can hear a guard making his rounds outside her door. His foot steps echoing around the walls of the empty hall. The only other sound is the screams coming from a cell a few doors down.

She wonders how much longer she will be stuck here. She wonders how long until she's driven to that level insanity.

She thinks for a moment that she might already be there.

At least she wasn't dead. At least Pennsatucky wasn't dead. At least she could argue self-defense. At least Taystee had been right, Piper could easily take Pennsatucky but she would have never thought it would have some to that.

She can feel the prison twisting its way inside her and changing her. She's adapting like an animal just to survive her sentence. The old Piper, the one that walked into this prison such a short time ago, never would have survived this long. The old Piper would have been lying dead in that snow a fucking wooden cross stabbed into her heart.

She feels the laughter bubble up in the back of her throat.

"Who the fuck carves a cross into a shiv?" She says to the beige wall.

Maniacal laughter echoes into the hallway and it takes a minute for Piper to realize the laughter is coming from her own mouth.

This only makes her laugh even harder.

She can hear the hall erupt into laughter and screaming in response. No one really knows what their laughing or screaming about but its good to have something to do other then count the bricks that line the wall of their cells.

Piper doesn't stop laughing until she hears something slam hard against the door and someone grunt a harsh command for silence. She listens as the slamming continues onto doors down the hall as the sounds die down.

Slowly she falls asleep and back into the nightmares that have haunted her these past months.

She wakes to a familiar grinding sound. She rises to her feet and checks the slot for whatever shit they plan to serve her today but she finds it still sealed tightly in place. It's not the first time she's heard noises before, she's just about to lie back down on her bed when she hears someone bellow through the door.

"Against the wall, Chapman."

She sits up in shock for a moment. She hasn't seen or heard from anyone, minus the screaming and the harsh barks of short commands that she forgets what to do. She doesn't move until she hears the command again, only harsher and more threatening.

"Move against the wall or we're going to fucking leave you here."

The thought of freedom has her up and against the wall in an instant.

There's a few more seconds and the loud grinding sound of the door sliding open. Piper doesn't remember it hurting her ears the way it did on the way in. Maybe the walls echo the sound louder from in here.

There's a guard up against her, running his hands along the loose fabric of her beige uniform like she could have some how managed to fucking smuggle something while being locked underground in a fucking hole for months. She can tell by the way the hand lingers on her ass for half a minute that it's Pornstache. She's almost thankful to have this douchebag touching her, at least that means she's almost free.

Everything moves in a blur. Her mind is swimming too much to really keep track of everything that happens. Before she can process a thought she's standing in her "room" again and she hears Pornstache barking.

"You have fifteen minutes left for breakfast." He says before he turns and leaves her, a set of the guards trailing behind him. Maybe things have changed in her time in the SHU but she never remembered Pornstache having a guard escort with him before.

She practically runs to the cafeteria. She never thought she would be so excited to eat Red's cooking in her life. She steps in through the open door and immediately enters the short breakfast line.

There isn't much left but Piper isn't really going to complain. The food is identifiable and looks like 5-star cuisine next to the shit from the SHU.

Nicky isn't even paying attention when she mechanically lifts up her spoon to plop eggs onto Piper's plate. She drops on some factory produced sausage still without looking up or asking and she throws a little bit of leftover toast before she looks up and opens her mouth to say something.

But the words never come out. Instead her mouth stands gaped open in shock, as if she might as well have seen Piper rise from the dead.

Red's looking up from behind Nicky's shoulder in an instant, a shit-eaten grin across her face.

"Welcome back." Is all she says with a little nod before she turns back and disappears into the kitchen.

Piper returns the nod even though Red is long gone. She takes bits of whatever hasn't been cleaned up or eaten already and turns back towards the tables.

She finds everyone staring at her. She doesn't even bother to bat an eye. She knows how word travels around here. She knows how everyone makes sure a shitshow of what actually happens and how fast the truth can be twisted into such a ridiculous story and for once, she doesn't give a fuck what they all think.

She just hopes they're all afraid.

**/* Want more? Let me know what you think! */**


	2. Chapter 2

There had always been something different about Piper, Alex never really appreciated it until Piper was long gone. Their relationship had started out like all of Alex previous ones and even the few she managed to have after, it was all about sex. It was about who was on top and who got the other to scream the loudest.

And God was the sex with Piper amazing.

Maybe Alex was a little bias but there was something behind a woman's touch that a man could never even dream to mimic. Some part of Alex hoped that she had set the bar too high for any future female lovers to come into Piper's life, that in a way Piper had no choice but to be with Larry. There was something different in Piper touch. It was nothing Alex had experienced before.

Alex can remember the exact moment she realized how very different it was. It was the same moment she pulled her eyes off of the dark ceiling and found those beautiful blue eyes staring back at her. It was the first time she came looking into the eyes of someone she knew she loved and someone she knew had actually loved her back.

* * *

_Alex sucked in air as her head fell back against the pillows. She shielded her eyes with the crook of her arm as she took deep relaxing breathes in a attempt to steady her overly pleasured body. Both of them were coated in a thin sheen of sweat but that didn't stop Piper from crawling up beside her and tucking her body against Alex's hips. Alex felt Piper's arm drape across her stomach, she knew the weight against her chest was Piper's head._

_Alex's breathing steadied as she slowly came down from the height of pleasure. She felt Piper's fingertips tracing shapes around her belly button. The blanket and sheets were still pushed down below their knees but Alex enjoyed the cool air on her warm skin and she was pretty sure Piper did too._

_Exhaustion began to take hold, Alex allowed her tired arm to drift off her face and fall along Piper's back._

_Sensing the easing in Alex's body, Piper drew herself even closer, she lifted her head to Alex's ear._

_"I love you." Piper whispered._

_Piper's head didn't wait for a response. Instead she settled her head into the crook of Alex's neck. Alex felt Piper's eyelashes against her skin as Piper's eyes fluttered closed._

_It had become a routine for them. Something inside of Alex kept her from muttering those three words and she felt a twinge of sadness at how familiar it had become to Piper. For a while Alex wasn't sure what she felt was love. It obviously wasn't at all about love at first but then it all changed._

_It was about keeping Piper happy, it was only Piper she could think about when she was away on trips or even out for the night. It was because of Piper that she rejected the countless beautiful girls that seemed to be able to sense the size of Alex's ever-growing wallet. Alex never knew what all those things meant. She cared about Piper. She knew that at the least._

_But she wasn't sure she knew what love was, how could she even say this is what it is?_

_But then it hit her and it makes her feel like a dumb asshole for not realizing it sooner. She would go to the ends of the earth for Piper and the whole reason for her career in drug smuggling, her whole reason for all of these shady dealings and terrifying exchanges is so she could be able to afford to love a girl like this. It was just to get the attention of a girl as beautiful as Piper._

_"I love you too." Alex lets out in a shaky breath._

_Piper's head is up in an instead. Alex keeps her eyes fixated on the reflection of the moon against the otherwise dark wall. Alex considers herself a fearless person but for some reason Piper can turn her into an absolute coward in a manner of seconds. She knows meeting those blue eyes is finalizing those words and leading up to an even bigger promise. A promise she doesn't know if she's ready to keep._

_But she wants to so badly._

_Slowly she shifted her glaze until she's locked on to those wide blue eyes. In the glint of the moonlight poking through the curtains she can see the liquid welling up there. Piper had always been the sappy one._

_Then Alex blinks and feels the wetness fall down her cheek._

_"Fuck." She tries to hide her face and the tears that Piper has so obviously already seen._

_Piper grabs her wrist to stop her and instead she leans in and plants a wet kiss to Alex's mouth, and then one to her neck, another to her stomach, her kisses trail lower and lower until Alex's was grabbing fistfuls of sheets._

* * *

It stopped being about power, she stopping being concerned with who could make the other reach climax the fastest, instead it turned into something slow and precise. Alex had never made love in that way before. Well if she's being honest, she's pretty sure she never made love before Piper.

It's really amazing how quickly everything can change. How she could go from making love in her silk sheets with candles burning on the mantel of her fireplace to prepping all her black clothing for her mother's funeral and packing what was left of Piper's things into a box, and crying like a little girl. She had thought that had been her lowest point but now here she is, staring at what the prison would like to call a stained glass window with a former drug addict who hasn't seen a hair brush in years between her legs.

Alex keeps her eyes fixed on the afternoon sun coming through the shitty windows. Nicky knows the drill. Alex knows she won't look up, she won't try to kiss her or hold her, Nicky knows that this is about getting off. It's about feeling good for that split second when all the muscles in your legs tighten and your entire body jerks. At least for the tiny moment she can be free. Free from this prison. And she thought she could be free from Piper.

But even now she's all she can think about.

Not much has changed from the second Piper left until now. If Alex believed in that shit Pennsyltucky preached about she'd almost call it fate. Though she's sure the fucker calling the shots really doesn't have her best interests in mind.

He never fucking did.

There's a flick of Nicky's tongue and Alex feels her body tensing tighter before she can even realize it's happening. She can't contain the cry that escapes her lips, Nicky grips Alex's thighs to push her as far open as her muscles will allow before she dips her head in deeper. It's messy, it always is with Nicky, Alex can feel her inner thighs coating with slobber and sweat and the grunting sounds coming from Nicky makes Alex feel like there's a dog going down on her.

It was never that way with Piper.

Piper's hands were soft. She didn't grab or pull, she caressed, she touched, she eased, she kissed. It seemed like Piper knew where to touch Alex before Alex's body knew it even wanted to be touched there. It was obvious that Alex wasn't the first girl Piper had been with but the jealous part of her couldn't even bring herself to care, not with the way she worked those fingers inside her. Not with the way she knew to curve her fingers just a little bit.

There's another grunt and Alex feels all of the muscles in her body tensing, her back arches without her permission and Nicky takes the opportunity to push even further. Nicky's nails dig deeper into Alex's flesh. It never hurt like this with Piper, but Alex is almost happy that it does, because this isn't Piper, because she'll probably never have her Piper again, Piper died in the SHU, she probably died long before that outside in the cold with Pennsyltucky when she was fighting for her life, all alone and no one was there to protect her.

If Alex wasn't so close, if thoughts of blonde hair and blue eyes weren't filling her mind, the gurgling sounds Nicky was currently making would probably turn her off but instead her back arches further and further back as she climbs higher and higher until she can't take it anymore. Her entire body convulses, Nicky doesn't adjusts her speed in reaction to Alex's body, she never does. It's always full or no throttle with Nicky. She's as loyal as a dog and as dumb as one sometimes. Alex body collapses and it takes her a second before she has the strength again to push Nicky away from her. It takes another second before Nicky gets the hint and lies back on her knees.

Alex can feels Nicky's eyes studying her. She always does this, Alex assumes she loves to watch her own handywork and feels proud at what she did. It doesn't help with the whole dog analogy Alex has build up in her own mind.

Nicky rises to her feet and grabs Alex's clothing from its pile underneath the window. Alex takes it from her without a word and slides her panties on before she stands up to cover her cold legs.

Alex catches Nicky wiping her sleeve across her mouth. Alex can tell by the smile on her face that she's particularly proud of herself today.

"Have you spoken to Chapman yet?" Nicky asks.

Maybe in Nicky's world it's not bizarre to mention the name of an ex-girlfriend the second after going down on the girl, but in Alex's she thinks it might be a tad too soon. She pauses with her pants halfway up her leg, she turns her back to Nicky before she pulls them up all the way. She takes a second to process even the mention of Piper's name before she can even attempt to shake her head no.

"Did you?" Alex manages to choke out a second later.

Even with her back turned she can feel Nicky's eyes studying her.

"Nope." Nicky responds.

Alex still has her back to Nicky when she starts to put her socks on.

"She just looked so mean this morning." Nicky says.

Alex remembers breakfast this morning when Piper was marching down the rows of tables. She had walked right by her usual seat next to Alex and Big Boo and the rest of them and instead picked the empty section of tables near the Golden Girls, essentially ostracizing herself and pissing off half the prison in the process. But what really struck Alex was the look in Piper's eyes the second she sat down. Alex saw something burning there, an anger, a rage that she had never seen inside of Piper before and if Alex was being honest, it kind of scared her.

"It just was so not-" Nicky began.

"Not Piper." Alex finished.

**/* Still want more? */**


	3. Chapter 3

Susan wasn't really sure what she had expected when she applied for the correctional officer position at a federal prison.

She sure didn't expect she would actually get it. She sure didn't expect that she'd find Ms. Chapman here as one of the inmates and she sure didn't expect to be the one that found Ms. Chapman sitting next to the beaten body of Ms. Doggett.

Part of her still can't bring herself to believe that Ms. Chapman would do anything like that. She knew there had to a better explanation for what she had done, there just had to be. Or maybe she was still telling that to herself to justify what she herself had done that cold night out in the yard.

* * *

_Fischer spent a short summer as a life guard at the local pool by her house. They gave her a quick lesson on CPR and how to check if a victim was still breathing but by the time she was on top of one of those super tall chairs she was pretty sure she had forgotten it all. She was a nervous wreck during all of her shifts, she tried to run through the CPR steps in her head but never got past the "check if they're breathing" step. _

_She was so thankful that no one drowned on her shift, she was pretty sure she would had done more harm than good. And that was so obvious now because she was trying to get a pulse on Ms. Doggett but she didn't even think she was pressing down in the right spots. Part of her was thankful for the gurgling coming up from Ms. Doggett's mouth, at least that meant she was breathing._

_She wasn't supposed to be out here. She wasn't on duty, she was still recovering from getting choked by _Miss Claudette. It wasn't even her idea to come to the pageant tonight. Her boyfriend thought it would be a good idea to come and to see that it really isn't as scary as her latest nightmares have been making it out to be.

But now it just seems like its worse.

"_We have an inmate down in the site yard." Fischer mumbled into her phone. The secretary took a second to respond. Maybe she was in the holiday daze or maybe she was confused to be hearing from an off-duty officer especially through the phone line but she could hear the crackle of a radio on the other line and she knew that help would be on its way._

_It felt like an eternity when the first set of guards burst through the door._

_The more experience guards raced towards her and pushed her back. She watched as they lifted Ms. Doggett's body and turned her sideways until the bubbling around her mouth stopped and the blood that pooled there dripped down her cheek. Fischer cursed herself, she should have thought to do that. A few other guards had Ms. Chapman pinned facedown in the snow. She didn't grunt or fight the guards in any way. She just laid there, staring off into some far distant land. She wasn't even sure if Ms. Chapman was in there anymore. They clipped one of those plastic ties around Ms. Chapman's wrist, Fischer saw the torn bloody skin of Ms. Chapman's knuckles, before they yanked her up into a kneeling position._

"_What happened?" Someone barked. _

_Ms. Chapman didn't even look up at him. Her eyes still stared off. _

"_Tell me what the fuck happened!" The guards were shaking her violently as if physicality would actually bring her back to realty but it did nothing. Her body just shook with the guards movements but her eyes never changed. _

_Fischer looked down at her feet and found a cross there. She had seen some of the "healing sessions" Ms. Doggett had been hosting before she was sent up to psych and she had heard about the incident with the giant cross in the chapel, she knew this had to belong to Ms. Doggett, she had crafted a few other crosses before. It wasn't until she knelt down that she saw the sharp point on the end of it. She picked it up and inspected it closer, Ms. Doggett had turned this into a weapon._

"_Give that to me." _

_Fischer felt the cross snapped from her hand and she looked up to find Mr. Healy looking downå at her. _

"_What is that?" It was Mr. Mendez who spoke, he was standing behind Ms. Chapman, he stepped closer to inspect the cross that Mr. Healy was holding. _

_There was a look in Mr. Healy's eyes like he felt guilty for taking it, Fischer thought that maybe they shouldn't have been touching it because it was evidence._

"_It's a weapon." Mr. Healy said quickly. "It must have been Chapman's." _

_He looks down at Ms. Chapman who's still kneeling on the ground below them, even if she could hear what they were saying she made no attempt to acknowledge their words. Fischer could hear one of the guards finally radioing in the request for an ambulance. _

"_I don't think it's Chapman's." Fischer spoke barely above a whisper but Mr. Healy turned around sharply and she knew he had to of heard her. _

_Mr. Healy opened his mouth to speak but Mr. Mendez spoke over him. "I agree." He took the device from Mr. Healy hand and flipped it over and over. "It just looks like something Doggett would make, Chapman can barely work a hammer." _

_There was a frown on his face. "It's Chapman's, I know it." He looked over at Ms. Chapman on the grass. "We're going to get you put away at Max...for five more years. Put her in SHU." He barked to the guards before he began to make his way for the door. _

_Fischer stood next to Mr. Mendez as the rest of the guards pulled Ms. Chapman towards the entrance as well. _

"_What a fucking night." Mr. Mendez whispered as he followed the guards pulling Ms. Chapman in tow. _

_There were two guards left when the ambulance crew burst through the door. They pushed Fischer back as they made space for the backboard next to Ms. Doggett. Fischer took several steps backwards before she felt she stepped on something hard._

_She looked down to find a red screwdriver underneath the back of her right boot. She bent down slowly, pulled the screwdriver up from the ground and slowly slipped it into her pocket. _

* * *

She doesn't know why they insisted on watching the surveillance footage again and again but here she was sitting in her usual corner of Mr. Caputo's office with the footage playing on his tiny little computer screen. Mr. Healy paces in front of her while Mr. Mendez sits patiently next to her, he's using a straw to pick at the spaces of his teeth and she's pretty sure he's just as bored of this as she is.

Fischer looks up at the grainy black and white video. She's kind of surprised at how terrible the videos really are, you can barely tell who is who in the video the biggest distinguishing factor is size, Ms. Doggett is a little shorter than Ms. Chapman. The screen is paused on the scene where Mr. Healy insists it shows Ms. Chapman holding a weapon threateningly, but even if Chapman was holding something the view is completely blocked by Ms. Doggett's body.

On the other hand you can see something in Ms. Doggett's hand every time she makes an attempt to swipe and slash Ms. Chapman.

"It's self-defense, I don't know why we're still arguing this." Mr. Mendez pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Because she has a weapon." Mr. Healy yells so loud that Fischer feels herself jump off her seat.

"You can't fucking prove that." Mr. Mendez is on his feet and pointing at the choppy video on the screen. "I have no fucking clue why you are out to fuck over Chapman but we fucking searched the god damn field and we found nothing-"

Fischer sank lower in her seat.

"-and we already have two fucking inmates that admit to seeing Doggett with the fucking cross-stake-thing so why are you wasting my fucking time."

Mr. Healy is in Mr. Mendez's face in an instant. they don't separate until Mr. Caputo comes between them. He doesn't speak until the two men slowly return to their corners of the room.

"He's right. The only thing I can see on this video is a rather frightened young blonde woman screaming for help and then fighting for her life, the same young blond woman you sent to the hole for no reason several weeks prior and another fanatical inmate who is less then a week off of psych and she's already, allegedly, attacking another inmate with a deadly weapon." Mr. Caputo says. "I'm sorry Healy but this is closed. Chapman is innocent. She's already served her time for the excessive force but we can't punish an inmate for protecting her own life."

Mr. Healy opens his mouth to speak but it takes just a glare from Caputo before he silences and slams his way out of the office.

**/* Author's Note: What do you think? */**


End file.
